Microsoft Says Its New Surface Book 2 is Twice as Powerful as Latest MacBook Pro

[NCWildcat]

We have a ton of these at work and almost all of them have hardware issues. Hopefully Book 2 has fixed these...

Not surprised....lots of SP3s and SP4s at my work, almost all are dogs and get bogged down easily. You can only really have a few apps open at a time before the fan really whirs up and sounds like Boeing taking off.

 

[cocoua]

It may have been true 20 years ago, but it's certainly not the case today.

Both OS's are increasingly mainstream, and becoming more and more similar. Macs have viruses. Windows is easy to use. Both have strong showings in media and content creation. Both are also fully capable business machines. And while it is definitely possible to buy PCs for cheaper than Macs, it is also increasingly common (as with the Surface Book 2) for PCs to be priced about the same as their Mac counterparts.

The "X is trash, I'll only ever use Y even if you paid me a billion dollars" line was old and tired in the late 1990's. I'd love to see these platform die-hards at their next job interview. Go ahead, ask them whether you'll be using a Mac or a PC. Stand up and walk out if they tell you they're using the "wrong" platform.

I've been a Mac user since 2003, but during that time I've also used Windows PCs on a daily basis at work. I could go on and on about how things have changed since then. Apple is still great but they've stagnated, and Windows has grown leaps and bounds. Bottom line, they both get the job done.

I have a surface pro 2 with win 10 lastest update, I ve got so many many soft problems taht is desesperating, forget about virues, just focus on simple OS thing as manage the hidpi f****g thing. In windows, even with zoom options, some tetx wont work with the zoom options and they shiws up at 100%!! Try taht in a 4k 13" screen

Its like a joke

When a external scren is attached, touch not work propperly on Surface screen, sometimes, on screen keyboard doesnt appear, and dozens of problmes similar,
Aftes using surface I take iPad and is like using foam slippers vs steel toe boots.

I'm pissed off of macbook high price and stupid features as the stupid touchbar, but cant work with windows
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Not surprised....lots of SP3s and SP4s at my work, almost all are dogs and get bogged down easily. You can only really have a few apps open at a time before the fan really whirs up and sounds like Boeing taking off.

Exactly as my retina macbook 2012

 

[convergent]

Real world usage between a MBP and a Surface 2 would also be similar. Just like my Win 10 laptop is just as fast as my full-blown Win 10 gaming rig, in day-to-day use.

Which iPhone 8 vs Note 8 videos show them performing similarly? The opening Apps in order ones? Or the ones showing people actually doing some real work?

You will find every possible comparison video in this thread - https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/iphone-8-or-note-8.2063073/

Er, no it hasn't. It's horrible, same as it has always been. Unintuitive, irritating, maddening, crippled on purpose and ugly.

Yet I'm able to get lots of work done, not irritated, maddened, or crippled, and all I hear from colleagues is how gorgeous the Surface is. Great to have different choices for different needs.

Microsoft says lots of things.
Anyone who believes what Microsoft claims without actual proof in the real world hasn’t been paying attention for the past 30-40 years.

You are holding it wrong.

IBM switched a bunch of their users to Mac and reduced HelpDesk support costs on those users by about 80 percent from memory.

Don’t have the study handy but google it. It’s readily available.

IBM... hmm ... the company who's consultants have been billing customers to show them their study on how remote workers are better... and then just recently told all their remote works to relocated to an IBM office or quit? Not much credibility there. But, I did work for IBM and used a Mac. The reason they were cheaper to support was a) the Macs weren't build with a crippling image of crap by IT, and b) IBM's offshore internal IT support is absolutely horrible in either case.

Because the result is a clunky compromise. An iPad Pro is a better tablet, and a MacBook Pro is a better laptop.

This is a decent choice if you want the best of both worlds. But it's quite compromised. For instance, the display is (necessarily) quite heavy.

The Surface Pro and Surface Book are unique devices that show a great deal of innovation that Apple hasn't had the "courage" to attempt. I happen to find them amazing devices for productivity. It all depends on your needs. I don't find either of them "clunky". Actually just the opposite. On a recent long haul trip with a colleague, I watched my colleague try to find a place to charge his Macbook, iPad, Dell company laptop, and iPhone. When we got to the office, he had them all laid out on the conference table. For me, I had my Surface Pro and my iPhone (now Note 8). His setup was way more "clunky" than mine. twice as many adapters, cables, devices, weight, syncing, etc.

 

[mi7chy]

Financial services backends (i.e where the important stuff happens) don't run on Windows and have never done so. They instead tend to run on Linux, AIX (IBM's mainframe OS) or some old mainframe OS (if they're one of the many big corporations that are still using systems they set up in the 70s and 80s due to the cost and risk of replacing them).

Don't get me wrong, most big companies run Windows on the desktop due to a long list of reasons, but systems that are business critical and/or require high performance to be able to perform their duties tend to run on operating systems better suited for that kind of work.

Try again. Top three banks use Linux, Windows and mainframe for backend. Rarely do they use MacOS/iOS except for QA testing client access to web banking services.

 

[kruegdude]

People in this thread are saying windows has gotten better... guys, windows is so, so much worse than it used to be. There are literal ads in the start menu. Windows randomly installs crap applications without your permission, and computers come loaded with so much third party bloatware its not even funny. And Windows is basically spyware now - tracking everything you do and sending to Microsoft. Don't like internet explorer? Oh look, it got renamed and Microsoft helpfully pinned it to your desktop without your permission.

But there’s a *lot* more variety in anti-virus software than there is for macOS.
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What are you maintaining on Windows 10 that I am not?

I run both side by side and honestly the only good thing about the Mac right now is probably Photos, Messages, Facetime, and its baked in integration with the iPhone.

Only? Seems like a lot.

 

[mcdj]

A dump truck is also twice as powerful as a Porsche. And 3 Big Macs have more meat than a home grilled Pat La Frieda burger.

When are the Microsoft and Google marketing teams and fanboys gonna stop trying to use hardware specs to lure Apple users?

 

[ilovemykid3302012]

Seems I stand corrected. Twice.

Had heard that Windows was not yet 64bit. OK.

Any ideas then why High Sierra is SO much faster switching between apps when running MacBook Pro 15inch touchbar with some memory pressure?

With Sierra it would take between 0.5-5 seconds to switch. Since High Sierra it's basically instantaneous (after performing a command-tab operation).

You hadn't heard Windows was 64bit? It's been 64bit for well over a decade.
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As a Windows user, I can tell you that the problem with ALL hardware manufacturers is lack of reliability.
And of course, the presence of Windows.

My ASUS N750's keyboard is broken, its heats up like crazy, but then there are problems inherent to Windows. It just gives up and shuts down randomly, or there's a black screen because Windows failed and there an irrecuperable mistake going on, with fans hurling and the disc drive spinning. How do I do work with this ?

At the office, it was the same. Always failing. We needed to restart like 20 times a day, lost work...

So, you can give me the lastest and shiniest Windows Powered PC.

I know it'll still rot within 6 months. I know it'll still be Windows.
Anone who pays north of 600€ for a Windows laptop sucks hard.

Another one who sounds like it was HW issues but blaming it on the OS.

 

[alexanderkilts]

Wait, this (again!) uses a proprietary connector/power supply for power? What is it with Microsoft and Apple?

The promise of USB-C is one cord for everything (or two for a while, since USB 2.0 has so much saturation, so a USB-C to USB 2.0 is handy). A lightning cord (or a Microsoft proprietary interface) means two cords instead of one (or FOUR for a while).

Honestly (maybe hypocritically) I'm glad they're keeping the SD card and a USB 2.0 port, both of which will be handy for a while, but how about a little less nickel and diming? Proprietary cords add little if any value to the consumer and are a big reason why I haven't upgraded my iPhone or iPad as planned these last two years. Having to keep around 30 pin connectors because we use old iPhones as media players constantly reminds me that I don't want to introduce yet another lightning device into our home so long after Apple has declared with its Macbooks that USB-C is the future.

And I'm guessing it will be THE reason why, if I switch to Windows next iteration, it won't be with this Surface Book 2.

 

[Mrumors]

Wait, this (again!) uses a proprietary connector/power supply for power? What is it with Microsoft and Apple?

The promise of USB-C is one cord for everything (or two for a while, since USB 2.0 has so much saturation, so a USB-C to USB 2.0 is handy). A lightning cord (or a Microsoft proprietary interface) means two cords instead of one (or FOUR for a while).

Honestly (maybe hypocritically) I'm glad they're keeping the SD card and a USB 2.0 port, both of which will be handy for a while, but how about a little less nickel and diming? Proprietary cords add little if any value to the consumer and are a big reason why I haven't upgraded my iPhone or iPad as planned these last two years. Having to keep around 30 pin connectors because we use old iPhones as media players constantly reminds me that I don't want to introduce yet another lightning device into our home so long after Apple has declared with its Macbooks that USB-C is the future.

And I'm guessing it will be THE reason why, if I switch to Windows next iteration, it won't be with this Surface Book 2.

It can also be charged with the USB-C port.

 

[convergent]

Not surprised....lots of SP3s and SP4s at my work, almost all are dogs and get bogged down easily. You can only really have a few apps open at a time before the fan really whirs up and sounds like Boeing taking off.

I had a Power Mac that when it was under load it sounded like a weed whacker. Are we going to talk about current products? My Surface Pro doesn't have a fan... its totally silent.

In my experience, if a Windows machine is bogged down then its because someone has caused it. A lot of the time the IT organization has built an image that is full of crap. In other cases the user has loaded a lot of crap. And my Macs have been bogged down plenty of times too. My current gen Surface Pro, which is less powerful than the Surface Book we are talking about in this thread, has performed very well.... certainly as well as my Macs.

 

[MH01]

A dump truck is also twice as powerful as a Porsche. And 3 Big Macs have more meat than a home grilled Pat La Frieda burger.

When are the Microsoft and Google marketing teams and fanboys gonna stop trying to use hardware specs to lure Apple users?

They don't have to lure them away, Apple is doing a great job of pushing away its pro and long term users by pushing fashion over function...... take the new MacBook Pro with touchbar..... at least the 2015 machine is still a great machine, the 2012 Mac mini a great mini..... the 2010 Mac Pro...... see a pattern here...... world has moved on....so have users in many cases

 

[deanthedev]

You will find every possible comparison video in this thread - https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/iphone-8-or-note-8.2063073/

Yeah, not going to scroll through 57 pages to try and locate some videos. I was hoping you’d provide a few yourself instead of expecting others to do the searching for you.

When you need to do work the A11 absolutely slaughters any Android device out there, including the Note 8. Opening Apps, checking e-mail or using Facebook they will both be similar.

 

[notjustjay]

I have a surface pro 2 with win 10 lastest update, I ve got so many many soft problems taht is desesperating, forget about virues, just focus on simple OS thing as manage the hidpi f****g thing. In windows, even with zoom options, some tetx wont work with the zoom options and they shiws up at 100%!! Try taht in a 4k 13" screen

Its like a joke

Yeah I'm not saying Windows is perfect, and like most here, I prefer OS X, and have since 2003. In fact my current MacBook Pro, I bought in 2013 after being exasperated with a Windows laptop that I tried to love, couldn't, and returned and got the Mac instead.

Back in 2003 it was even worse. I jumped onto the Mac bandwagon just in time, as my PC friends were hit with these new terms "adware", "spyware", and a bunch of other crap that I conveniently didn't need to worry about. "I'm using a Mac!" I would say. "There are ZERO viruses for OS X!" I jumped to a Mac because it was SO much more capable at video editing and DVD authoring than my Dell PC. Macs just worked with printers and USB devices where Windows forced you to install drivers before plugging in any device. I had so many great stories.

Those were fun days. The gap is much, much narrower now.

I'm just saying that it's not black and white, it's not that one platform is amazing and the other is trash. A lot of us, in both camps, are still stuck in that mindset. Have your personal preference, that's fine, but don't be closed-minded about it. Elsewhere in this thread someone made comparisons with dump trucks and Porsches. Well, you wouldn't want a dump truck as your daily commuter car, and you wouldn't want to use a Porsche to get soil for your yard renovation. Rather than insisting that you're 100% in any one camp, your best bet is to know how to drive and operate both, and that way you'll be prepared for anything.

 

[Dethklok]

Apple's best product is the iPad, followed by maybe the Apple TV (for the free 4K movie upgrades), then the iPhone (but Android is equal), Apple Watch, then the Macbook and iMac.

I'm not even sure why you would buy a Macbook or iMac these days. We can't even buy servers for them anymore. They need to just drop out of the computer market and focus what they are good at.

 

[notabadname]

Windows has come a long way. It's a lot better than what people think.

Disagree. I use windows, it's as bad as what people think.

 

[deanthedev]

Not surprised....lots of SP3s and SP4s at my work, almost all are dogs and get bogged down easily. You can only really have a few apps open at a time before the fan really whirs up and sounds like Boeing taking off.

Had a Surface Pro 4 and the fan ran a lot. In tablet mode I found poor support for the Apps I use, so I returned it a week later. One good thing about MS is they have a great return policy.
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Disagree. I use windows, it's as bad as what people think.

I don’t think so. I definitely prefer using a Mac, but both my Win 10 machines run pretty good.

 

[GtrDude]

That's awesome.
I love the Surface Books.
They serve a particular need I have absolutely perfectly and they're rock solid.
Never had a crash and I use mine for hours a day.

 

[convergent]

They don't have to lure them away, Apple is doing a great job of pushing away its pro and long term users by pushing fashion over function...... take the new MacBook Pro with touchbar..... at least the 2015 machine is still a great machine, the 2012 Mac mini a great mini..... the 2010 Mac Pro...... see a pattern here...... world has moved on....so have users in many cases

This is me exactly. I was very happy with Apple, and then they changed direction. They stopped producing things that supported my needs. Fashion over function completely sums it up. When SJ was there, fashion was a factor. But he was also very focused on function. That has been lost.

Yeah, not going to scroll through 57 pages to try and locate some videos. I was hoping you’d provide a few yourself instead of expecting others to do the searching for you.

When you need to do work the A11 absolutely slaughters any Android device out there, including the Note 8. Opening Apps, checking e-mail or using Facebook they will both be similar.

You are the one that wanted to see them... you can look through the list.

But do tell what "work" would I be doing that the A11 is going to "slaughter" any Android device. I do real work on my Note 8. Its fully integrated with my business apps. I heavily use OneDrive, OneNote, the office suite, Email, Web, as well as entertainment apps... and dozens more. In zero of them have I seen any noticeable difference in performance to my iPhone. Not sure how you can slaughter something that is already pretty much instant response. One area the Note 8 "slaughters" any iPhone is that I can take pen based notes in the full OneNote app on my Surface, and then open that notebook on my Note 8 and edit the hand written notes with the S-pen. There are many other "slaughter" use cases because I am worried about function, and you are apparently looking at CPU benchmarks as your measure of capability. Fast is fast... who cares if one can be clocked faster if it can't do a function I want to do???

 

[Dethklok]

Disagree. I use windows, it's as bad as what people think.

I use Windows at home and OSX at work. There's no difference other than getting used to where to find what you're looking for. Windows is a little easier to mess up with viruses if you're computer illiterate, but I spend all day cleaning viruses off client's Mac computers as well. They just aren't as destructive as Windows viruses, but they are still stealing your info and redirecting your web pages.

 

[AndyMacAndMic]

Wait, this (again!) uses a proprietary connector/power supply for power? What is it with Microsoft and Apple?

The promise of USB-C is one cord for everything (or two for a while, since USB 2.0 has so much saturation, so a USB-C to USB 2.0 is handy). A lightning cord (or a Microsoft proprietary interface) means two cords instead of one (or FOUR for a while).

Honestly (maybe hypocritically) I'm glad they're keeping the SD card and a USB 2.0 port, both of which will be handy for a while, but how about a little less nickel and diming? Proprietary cords add little if any value to the consumer and are a big reason why I haven't upgraded my iPhone or iPad as planned these last two years. Having to keep around 30 pin connectors because we use old iPhones as media players constantly reminds me that I don't want to introduce yet another lightning device into our home so long after Apple has declared with its Macbooks that USB-C is the future.

And I'm guessing it will be THE reason why, if I switch to Windows next iteration, it won't be with this Surface Book 2.

What's your point? You can also charge the Surface Book 2 through the USB-C port and the proprietary connector is also there for the (separate) docking station. If they would remove that they would lose the backwards compatibility with the dock. It is the best of both worlds. Nothing to complain about.

 

[Falhófnir]

No doubt that Microsoft has been working hard to catch up to everyone in the PC manufacturing space and I applaud them for continuing to try to be both a software and hardware developer. It's something they should have done decades ago, even if it meant that their software business suffered in the short-term as other manufacturers looked to other options (as if there were any other viable options to consider back then).

I would definitely temper any excitement about the new Surfaces for two reasons. One is that with the newest Intel chips, it's not surprising that they're both faster and more efficient. And when Apple releases newer Intel chip powered devices, they'll then be faster, so it's a game of leapfrog, as long as Apple continues to use Intel chips. The other reason to be cautiously optimistic is that MS now has a reputation of promoting power/performance and then when devices are tested they fall flat, not living up to their claims.

In fairness, it's not like apple are immune from over-claiming (well, anymore anyway, they used to be quite good) - beit on 10h of battery life or something that's 'twice as fast' only by particular metrics. Power isn't my main concern personally, my main wants are sufficient power, good battery life, a nice, sharp, colourful 15" screen - preferably with a squarer aspect ratio, and a good keyboard.

both a mbp and surface book have my power needs covered comfortably. Using a 15W cpu (though it could conceivably be configured to 25W as per Intel's page on the chip) makes the battery life claims of the surface more realistic too... In all honesty I'd not be surprised to see Apple's replacement for the 2015 15 inch pro drop down to a 15 or 28W chip as that's the only way of getting Iris level graphics anymore and I don't see them offering a DGPU of any kind for the $1,999 price tier! Both machines deliver on the nice screen with a more than 16:9 aspect, the Surface will have the more normal keyboard.

If I'm spending £2,500 I may as well get the machine whose gimmicks are a detachable screen with touch and pen input rather than the one with the keyboard that feels like it doesn't move and has the ports of the future today... and unless apple pulls off something impressive in the spring it'll probably be Microsoft getting my upgrade money. I'm happy to try something new while Apple get their act together. I won't say the Macs aren't good machines in their own right, but it's really almost at the point now that they're not fit to fight in the price category they occupy - God help the line if consumers in general feel the same way, because I get the feeling Apple would sooner can the line altogether than put the effort into developing something that does wow us.

 

[Stella]

Apple's best product is the iPad, followed by maybe the Apple TV (for the free 4K movie upgrades), then the iPhone (but Android is equal), Apple Watch, then the Macbook and iMac.

I'm not even sure why you would buy a Macbook or iMac these days. We can't even buy servers for them anymore. They need to just drop out of the computer market and focus what they are good at.

If Apple can't be bothered to create good hardware, license out the OS. Let other companies create the better hardware.

Licensing was tried before, and largely failed but today things are different: Apple aren't depending on the Mac in order to survive.

 

[devinci99]

Very tempting specs and design... really itching to buy the model with GTX 1080.

Funny thing is 2 things is making me hesitate:

A) still no 3 finger drag

B) PPI scaling.

Funny A is more of a problem for me than I thought. I purchase the Surface 3 Pro when it was release because I drooled over the design, the pen accuracy, and ability to run full desktop O/S portability, etc... much like the Surface Book 2. But after a week using it, I release how I hated to touch screen experience in laptop mode, how I really miss the 3-finger drag for the trackpad.

Search and search I tried to look for a hack to enable dragging with 3 fingers multi-touch and couldn't find it.

PPI scaling in some apps still doesnt look good. Remote Desktop is one of the apps that I loathe using on the Surface 3 Pro. I hate to download a separate app and it wasn't easy to find. Otherwise the remove view looks really really small because it was being display at pixel for pixel res.

I've never really used my Surface 3 Pro much since except for quick sketches, and highly specialize tool for some occasions. Went back to my 2009 Macbook Pro, and 2010 Macbook Air for the most part. =(

Hesitating because I got a feeling the Surface Book 2 no matter how much of a spec upgrade it is, will ultimately give me the same user experience as the Surface 3 Pro.

P.S, Windows Update is still a problem.
I powered on my S2P at work for the purpose to quickly check on some personal emails run a quick research and turn it off. Powers on quick (good), but then freaking Windows Update comes up and ruins that goal and experience. Everything just felt slow. Then went to power off, and Windows update decided to run updates during restart and wouldn't shutdown immediately.

It's a mobile tablet/laptop!! Not a desktop, why is Windows Update still design for all system the same and assume it's a desktop or similar and isn't mindful of customer who are on the go.

Now that I reminded myself... nope no longer tempted to get a Surface Book 2.

 

[convergent]

If Apple can't be bothered to create good hardware, license out the OS. Let other companies create the better hardware.

Licensing was tried before, and largely failed but today things are different: Apple aren't depending on the Mac in order to survive.

Why in the world would Apple license MacOS when they can keep doing minimal effort on the hardware side and charge premium prices?

 

[MacsRuleOthersDrool]

Sounds awesome. But it runs Windows...

[Actually, Windows isn't half too bad these days ]

If you like every single keystroke sent to Redmond/NSA, that is...